


The pills are all gone (but that's fine baby, so am I)

by baekkieony



Series: Drowning Alive [17]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, ChanBaek - Freeform, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Drugs, Eating Disorders, Heavy - Freeform, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sad, Sad Ending, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Underage Drug Use, gangs like, sekai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-14 01:36:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13583238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baekkieony/pseuds/baekkieony
Summary: Sehun wishes he could just close the bottle and throw it out of the window, but a life without pills is a lost life.





	The pills are all gone (but that's fine baby, so am I)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hyperionova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyperionova/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In Another Life...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987712) by [Hyperionova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyperionova/pseuds/Hyperionova). 



> **yeah, trigger warning, this is like very heavy. please don't do drugs, stay in school and suicide is never a sollution, even if it kind of sounds like it in this one shot. please get help if you're dealing with depressions and other things, you're not alone, we love you and you're perfect**  
>     
> gifted to hyperionova, because his/her work inspired me a lot ( and i dunno why, because it has nothing in common beside that Jongin dies lol) and i wanted to thank him/her :3
> 
> not beta read

One tear drops onto the laptop, silently falling like Sehun has been falling for Jongin all the time and he feels himself panicking, hands trembling and head spinning where time has stopped. Out of habit his hand is slowly creeping to the side, to his last resort to get him under control – to stop being himself and shut up – and when he reaches to the bottle next to him, clips it open and pops one pill into his palm, he feels his head calming and his heart hurting.

He wishes he would be able to throw the container out if the window, to close the bottle and never think about them again, but he can’t handle it without them, not yet and for one moment, he feels accepted and sociable, just for a second, because he isn’t panicking anymore and maybe – just for people outside – he seems normal.

His hands are still trembling tho, but he tells himself that he doesn’t need another pill, he doesn’t need to pop another, because he has to get away from them for his own sake and because Jongin told him that it’s going to be harder to get them now, since they restricted the prescription of Xanax even more.

He could go to a doctor and tell him how often he panics, how much it would help if he’d get the prescription – himself and his parents, because they don’t know Sehun gets it illegally – and that he could may live his life as a normal person with normal friends and with normal hobbies, but he can’t.

His parents think he’s weird and insane, because he always has to pop one pill before he can talk to them normally and he has to pop two before going to school and three to meet his friends, but he can’t help it, can’t help himself and they think the only reason he has this panic attacks is his homosexuality, that his panic attacks are a punishment by god, because he has sinned the moment he decided to kiss Jongin to feel at least something.

He doesn’t has the guts to tell them that it’s kind of their fault, that he was always insecure, that his depressions are eating him alive, that all his friends are drug addicts, that he isn’t special in a single way and loving Jongin isn’t a mistake even if their relationship might be kind of fucked up.

He can’t do anything about being himself and he waits for the day his parents accept that some people aren’t able to hide themselves without constantly being drugged, because it makes them forget the world for a second. It hurts him – to live with the pills, not physically, but psychically – and he would like to give it up, to stop breathing for a day or a week or a lifetime, but he cannot give up for Jongin, not yet, because he needs him so much and he needs Jongin.

He’s never told Jongin about his problems, how the depressions came, because he can’t name a reason himself, he doesn’t know how it happened, he just knows it happened one day and they came and decided to never go back again and then there was this beautiful new boy in class who told him that he just needed to pop one or two pills and the world would be normal again. He also brought him to parties, introduced him to his friends and to a new exciting life of drugs, sex and addiction. There was no party without MDMA, no sex without E’s, no night without at least one single thing being destroyed – may it be the tv or a person.

Sehun has seen more people puking in someone’s garden in the past one year than he has in his whole life before and he also never tried drugs before. He beared his life constantly without help, has stood through the deepest phase of depression, has lifted the weight of world alone, every day; but one day Jongin came and with him the pills that calmed his head and made the world feel less heavy.

He also never had been interested in smoking or boys before – he hasn’t had a girlfriend ever before, but his parents didn’t mind, because he also never had brought a boy home too – and when he introduced them Jongin, who wasn’t stoned for the first time in his life apparently, or so (but on MDMA instead), they were shocked, because Sehun couldn’t be into boys and their son also couldn’t do drugs.

When Jongin was gone and they had dinner, his father has hit him the first time and he wasn’t allowed to eat anything that evening. He ran away this night, to Jongin and when he opened him the door, he didn’t say anything about Sehun’s bruised eye or his bloody nose, but instead asked him to stay the night and helped him forget with a lot of sweet kisses and a lot of alcohol.

Now – with 17 – Sehun has given up on life and also has given up on the hope that his parents would accept him – one day, maybe. His hands still tremble when he closes the container and opens it again in his hand, again and again, repeating it like a mantra. Jongin has told him they always had a free place to stay, a bed for him to share and pill for him to pop.

When he hears his mother screaming at his father downstairs and a plate shatter when it hits a wall, he wipes away the tear from the corner of his eyes and suppresses the ill feeling in his stomach, before closing his laptop and packing it into a bag, together with his container of pills, a notebook and some clothes. He pockets his phone and throws over a jacket, shoes on and bag shouldered. His parents are still screaming in the living room and he sneaks into the kitchen to grab an apple.

He tries not to listen too much to their screaming, but when he hears his father yell that his mother is “as much of a failure as your son”, he has to swallow loudly. He really thought they’d like Jongin, because he was sweet and nice if he wasn’t drugged and Sehun has fallen for him as hard as the bottle of pills in his bag is.

Sehun runs away this night, not for the first time, but this time he’s never coming back again and by sunrise he’s gone forever.

_____________________________________

“Sehun, my man! Finally quit your parents?”, Chanyeol welcomes him with opened arms when he kicks the thick door of the old industry hall open, where they had built up their home and where Sehun has found a family he’d never want to lose. Sehun grins at him before he throws himself in Chanyeol’s arms, lanky limbs closing around Sehun’s skinny waist and he can feel Chanyeol’s sharp bones digging into his skin.

“Yeah dude; I’m done with their shit. So happy to finally get out from there”, he takes one look at Chanyeol and sees his thin legs in wide sweat pants who would fit Sehun perfectly, gaze scraping over sharp bones and outstanding collar bones here and there. Chanyeol’s hoodie would also fit Sehun perfectly, but Sehun doesn’t say anything about the way Chanyeol seems to sink in in these clothes and how loose they are, because he knows that Chanyeol is anorexic and the way his cheekbones are hollow and his smile seems sad tell Sehun that it got worse.

But it’s normal for Sehun, it’s normal to be the only one eating when he’s with Chanyeol, it’s okay that Chanyeol is always out of this world and the way his ribs are digging out of his flesh is also okay, because he can’t change it anyway. _A part of the young wasted youth all these singers want to sing about_ , Sehun thinks bitterly and with a grim around his lips and bad aftertaste in his mouth, like he has drunken bleach.

A sequel from the side rips him out of his thoughts – who ran too deep again – and when feels Baekhyun earlier than he sees him – maybe because a mob of pink hair is currently blocking his sight. “SEEEEEHUUUUN! You don’t know how much I missed you!”, he presses the last bit of air out of him when he hugs Sehun until death and after he releases him, Sehun feels like he has broken ribs now. When he sees Baekhyun’s excited face and takes a breath from this always happy boy with so much energy that he could probably run a whole city, he feels a little better, but just a small bit. (He feels a lot better, but he would never admit how much the aura and vibe of this short brat is helping him).

“Baek, you literally saw me yesterday, dumbass. You can’t miss me that much”, Baekhyun just grins mischievous and the sparkle in his eyes lit up. He slings an arm around Chanyeol’s thin waist – they’re boyfriends apparently – and stems his other skinny hand in his side to give Sehun a once over. It’s not until he notices the bag in Sehun’s hand, laptop peeking out slightly, that he realizes why Sehun is here.

“You ran away, right?”, the question from Baekhyun is surprisingly soft where it doesn’t need to be soft, because he’s happy – finally and forever – and he doesn’t need their pity, because he wanted it and he made his decision to never come back to a place he could never call home anyway. But Sehun doesn’t answer; he just nods and sets the bag down on one bed in the big hall, the bed always reserved for him.

He watches Baekhyun and Chanyeol interact from his bed, each one as skinny as the other. They both had their issues – anorexic and unstable – but together they were perfect, a unit nobody could control nor destroy. They were the kind of couple Sehun always dreamed of being one day, but then he heard about how Baekhyun ran away from his parents too, because they were alcoholics and how Chanyeol was an orphan and Sehun felt quite _harmless_ and selfish to worry about his life and his fears, because they were so small and irrelevant.

It took him a few months to understand that it didn’t matter how small or big his problems are; the only thing that mattered was the way he could forget them when he was with them – may it be because of drugs or not. Nobody saw him as less important just because he hadn’t lost his mother or that his dad wasn’t in jail – even if they told him often he should finally go to the police.

When he looks at them now – together at once and two years later – he realizes that they and this life is everything he ever needed and for what feels like the first time in life, he doesn’t feel as lonely anymore.

He follows the trail of Baekhyun’s hand over Chanyeol’s chest, skinny fingers wrapping around a skinny wrist and when they intertwine their hands to one, he feels completed, too.

_____________________________________

Jongin doesn’t show up until the next evening, but Sehun hasn’t been waiting anyway, because he already know that Jongin is living from day to day – often out for hours, days, months – and Sehun accepts that without ever questioning what he does there. As long as he comes home, it’s fine.

(But sometimes – only sometimes – Sehun feels like a wife waiting for her man to come back from war and Sehun kind of knows that end, he’ll be lonely, but he represses that thought in the darkest corner of his brain).

They don’t talk much, – they never do, because actions tell a thousand things more than words ever could – they just cuddle and kiss a lot, eating dinner together with all the other people who life in this old warehouse. They all have different stories, different problems, different reasons why they came here and maybe one day, they’ll be ready to tell them, to spill their secrets, but until then they can live in peace.

Sehun does know the most stories tho, but not all – he thinks even Jongin doesn’t know all and he’s kind of the leader or something important, because he gets the drugs – and there’s Kyungsoo who has been there from the beginning, but never talks, never, not even when he wants something and the others think he might be mute, but Sehun thinks he can talk, he just don’t want to, because he’s scared he could tell anyone the reason why he’s here.

It’s okay tho, Sehun accepts that and he likes quiet people, because Sehun cannot talk without getting close to a panic attack with people he doesn’t know well, so it’s better if they just sit together and are silent.

At night they walk out to watch the stars, just Jongin and Sehun and they tell each other I love you and when Sehun sees a falling star, he takes it and swallows it, together with his life and the new scars on Jongin’s wrist.

(It’s not like Jongin doesn’t try to hide them, but sleeves can’t hide everything and Sehun is tired of telling him that wrist are for bracelets and not for cutting).

_____________________________________

It has gotten worse and Sehun notices that. He doesn’t know when Jongin has started, he doesn’t know why Jongin has started, but the scars were always there, since day one, since they met and it wasn’t really Jongin without purple scars on his arms, legs and stomach. They looked weird on his rock-hard abs – Sehun has told him that when Jongin took his virginity – but Jongin had just laughed and said that they were nothing compared to the monster screaming inside his head.

Sehun understands Jongin, yes, but he doesn’t like it and he mustn’t, he has no reason to. He told him so many times to stop it, but he just keeps on littering them over his skin, marking it like it has no value to him, like he plays with his life because he couldn’t care less about it and Sehun knows that this is what Jongin is thinking – that life is worthless and that’s exactly his attitude.

They’re sitting on Sehun’s bed, only three months have passed since he ran away and when Sehun silently rolls up Jongin’s sleeve and notices the new marks and purple lines, he sighs and Jongin just smiles sheepishly.

“What have I told you?”

“Sehun I di-”

“Jongin, _what have I told you_?”

Jongin sighs.

“That wrist are for bracelets, not for cutting”, he mumbles quietly into the hem of his shirt. Sehun can’t but shake his head. “Yes, I have and I was serious every single time. I know it’s hard to stop, but please try it at least, try it for me”, he feels Jongin tense, as always when they’re talking about this and about _his_ problems.

“And I also told you that it’s not your shit to deal with, Sehun”, bitter rings his voice in Sehun’s ears, “you don’t even really care about me”.

The grip around Jongin’s wrist is getting loose and Jongin wriggles it out of Sehun’s fingers, who just sits there in shock, before his eyes turn fury and he grits his teeth. It takes Jongin exactly five seconds to realize what he just said there and he regrets with every bit.

“Yo-you have the nerve, the fucking nerve-”

“Sehun, I-I didn’t meant it like-”

“You tell me that I don’t care about you when I’m waiting weeks for you to come back, always worried that you may never turn home again? You call that don’t caring about something? Great, because then I just quit it. I won’t care about you anymore, I won’t wait anymore, if that’s what you want”

“Sehun, just listen to me, I really didn’t mean to hurt you, but-”

“Jongin, can’t you understand that I’m always worried about you, because there’s the chance that you just won’t wake up tomorrow?”, Sehun looks up, directly in Jongin eyes, tears shimmering in the corner, but Sehun can’t cry now, can’t get a panic attack, not now. He has to suppress the anxiety.

Jongin say nothing after this, just closes his mouth like he wanted to say something, but didn’t consider it necessary anymore and then just looks down, playing with the hem of his shirt.

It’s quiet for a while, nothing but the birds chirping outside and Sehun isn’t able to hold back the tears any longer, because Jongin looks like he’s made out of plastic in the sun and he’s so perfect and their relationship is so fucked up, but he’s not ready to lose, him not yet.

Jongin’s voice trembles just like his fingers when he tells Sehun that he’s sorry and Sehun just says it’s okay even if they both know it’s not and when they hug, their salty tears are dripping onto each others shoulder.

_____________________________________

Jongin doesn’t change a thing after that and Sehun knows that, knows that he keeps cutting, but Sehun has given up on Jongin, just has given up and accepted the fact that he isn’t able to help him anymore. The only thing that would help Jongin know is professional treatment, but Jongin is far away from accepting that (or being able to pay it).

The others notice, too; that there has something changed and that the tension between this two has become incredibly thick, but they don’t say anything and Sehun is grateful for that, because he doesn’t know if he would just break down and scream or rather kill himself. Both opinions sound appealing at the moment.

The first one to say something about it is Kyungsoo. The boy who never spoke, never said a word. He was the first and the only one.

One evening – when the others are out – he comes to Sehun and sits down on his bed, like he has done sometimes in the past and Sehun doesn’t question it and just expects another evening of silence.

The soft “Jongin’s difficult” coming from his side is startling him and for a second, he thinks that he it was himself who has spoken, but when he turns to Kyungsoo and he sits there, knowing smile on his lips and eyes soft, he knows it wasn’t himself.

“You-I-what the”, Sehun stutters out of his mouth, before he gets a grip on himself, focuses and tells himself that he can do that. With a firm (or at least what he thought was firm) voice, he answer after thinking a bit. “I won’t say difficult, more like...special”.

Kyungsoo chuckles at this, because it’s basically the same, just nicer said and Sehun knows that himself. It’s a bit silent for a while, but Sehun doesn’t mind, gives Kyungsoo the time he needs. After a while, he speaks up again.

“I have known him since birth basically. We moved cities together, went to the same schools, until high school came and my parents decided to send me to a different one to get me away from “the bad influence” he apparently has on me”, Sehun nods, this sound exactly like Jongin. “He was always a bit different, brave and a troublemaker, the teachers never liked him and so did my parents. He himself has no one but you, you know, his parents died 2001 in the twin towers. He had luck that he stayed with his aunt this day, or he would be dead, too”.

Another short silence.

“In high school, the shit really started. He dealt with drugs, all that stuff, ya know, the shit he does now. Over the time, he brought people with him. Jongin loves to collect people, but he never brought someone he looks the same at as you. You’re special, you know. He doesn’t tell you everything, because he wants to protect you from the people out there, people who wouldn’t wait a second to kill you, just because Jongin loves you. They’re dangerous, Jongin is dangerous, but I think you know that already”

For a second, Sehun is overwhelmed with everything. It is just too much, but he would handle it and he has to accept that there are parts of Jongin he doesn’t share with him. Sehun really isn’t one to talk there, because he hasn’t told Jongin everything either.

Sehun thinks about a question he wanted to ask for so long, but it was too forward, too early to ask, and yet, he still does it. “And what about you. Why are _you_ here?”, Kyungsoo chuckles again, before he looks at him, doe eyes soft. “Basically my parents kicked me out after they found out that I killed the neighbour kid”.

“O-oh, okay”

Sehun must has been the shock written all over his face, because Kyungsoo seems to notice his mistake and quickly explains.

“No no, it was an accident, I babysitted him, but when I went inside to get him and my a coke, he fell into the pool and he was too young to swim and I was to late, so he drowned. But I still feel kind of guilty about that, because I stole a family their son at such a young age”

Sehun just slides closer and hugs Kyungsoo awkwardly form the side, because it wasn’t really his fault and he can’t change it anymore. But he just keeps quiet, because he really isn’t in the place to tell him that, especially now. Kyungsoo seems surprised at first, but the hugs back without a question.

When the others come back that morning, they don’t ask questions and Sehun doesn’t tell them that he has spoken with Kyungsoo and when he’s cooking dinner for them, he throws Sehun a smile and he seems grateful for it.

_____________________________________

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, just five weeks after the conversation with Kyungsoo and Sehun has seen it coming from a mile away, has known it would happen soon, but he didn’t know the date, when exactly it would happen and he thought he is ready, but when it happens it still leaves him breathless.

He’s restless this morning, helpless and he just sits there in his shared bed with Jongin, in a pool of blood and he doesn’t know what to do, because Jongin won’t wake up no matter how hard Sehun shakes him and the cuts on his wrist are deeper than expected and there’s just so much blood.

He’s still in shock when the others tried to get him away from the dead body, can’t disengage his grip around Jongin’s chest, face pressed into the crook of his neck, breathing in the last scent of Jongin while salty tears are dropping into the pool of blood.

He has lost everything he had, and he wasn’t ready even if he claimed he was and it shocks him to the core and there’s one thing in his mind that keeps following him, the thought that he can’t keep Jongin waiting for him, like Jongin always did.

_____________________________________

Nobody hears Sehun walking into their bathroom and opening the door of the cabinet, grabbing a small bottle of pills and nobody hears him closing the cabinet and leaving the bathroom to return to his bed like he nothing.

It’s okay, Sehun tells himself, it’s okay to give up and he just wants to see Jongin again so desperately and his anxiety attacks aren’t bearable anymore, he can’t bear them alone and he needs Jongin just so badly it hurts.

He feels a single bit of guilt, of regret, when he opens the bottle, because he’s leaving the others behind without a note or a single sentence to explain, but he knows they’ll understand, they’ll know why he does that, why he needs to do that.

He sends a loving gaze to the bottle filled until the rim with pills and he’s going to feel so light and finally alive again and everybody has always told him that death sounds very lonely, but at the moment, death sounds a lot less lonely than being alive.

Sehun sees a falling star outside the window and he takes it and swallows it, together with the pills in the bottle, one or two, or maybe the whole container.

He closes his eyes, lets himself fall on the mattress, legs spread and he breathes in deep and when he smiles and everything goes dark, the only thing he feels is relief.

(In the morning, Kyungsoo is the first to wake up and when he sees Sehun on the mattress, pill container completely empty, he walks over and sighs, before smiles sadly. He leans down to stroke over his cheek softly, white flesh looking like plastic and he lets him go).


End file.
